An old IT adage is, "No one ever got fired for buying IBM." In modern terms, this means that most companies have an aversion to using systems that are new, innovative, or revolutionary, simply out of fear of the unknown. Many excellent ideas never got off the ground because of this fear.

In the development world, this means that most business applications are done in a "mainstream" system, such as Java, .NET, or PHP. I am curious to know how many TechRepublic members use non-mainstream languages in production work. Let me know by taking this poll. (I'll let you decide if the language is non-mainstream.)